Jewish Contributions to Humanity

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Special
Friends

Training and fast
action allowed
Rabbi Bennett to
save his buddy.

# in a series

Two Jews
Who Helped Us
See Ourselves
Better.

RONELLE GRIER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

W

hen Rabbi Josh Bennett
accepted an invitation
to have lunch with his
6-year-old friend, Solomon Kaplan,
he expected a pleasant hour of
food and conversation. He did not
expect to end up saving the boy’s
life.
Excited to be spending time with
his rabbi and special friend at the
Special Person
ABOVE: Rabbi event at Lone
Josh Bennett of Pine Elementary
Temple Israel School in West
with Solomon Bloomfield,
Kaplan, 6, at the Solomon forgot
Special Person what he had been
event at Lone Pine
taught about
Elementary School
swallowing his
food before talk-
ing. Suddenly, a bite of his hoagie
sandwich went down the wrong
way, and he found himself chok-
ing. Unable to speak, he tapped
the rabbi’s arm to get his atten-
tion. Fortunately, Bennett, who has
had CPR training that included
the Heimlich maneuver, was quick
to react. He positioned himself
behind Solomon, wrapped his
arms around him and adminis-
tered two solid thrusts to the boy’s
chest, dislodging the piece of food.
“I’ve taken several CPR courses,
most recently at a Temple Israel
staff training, to be prepared for
that moment, but it’s different to
have it happen in real life,” Bennett
said. “I’m thrilled I was able to be
there for him.”
Solomon’s mother, Karen
Kaplan, a PTO member, was at
the school helping out with the
event when she saw her son begin
to choke from across the room.
Before she could respond, Bennett
had the situation under control.
“He knew what to do and he
reacted immediately,” Kaplan said.
The Kaplans had known Bennett
through the family’s member-
ship at Temple Israel in West

Bloomfield, but it was when
Solomon’s older brothers played
baseball with Bennett’s sons that
Solomon and the rabbi began to
develop a deeper friendship.
Last year, Solomon invited
Bennett to the annual Special
Person event, instead of asking a
family member the way most stu-
dents do. Despite the demands of
the hectic Jewish holiday season,
Bennett was honored to accept.
“We told Solomon that rabbis
are really busy during September,
but he never says no,” Kaplan said.
“They really have a special bond.”
While Bennett believes the holi-
days are a time to connect with
the larger community, he says
building relationships with indi-
viduals is at the heart of his ser-
vice as a rabbi.
“The fact that a 6-year-old boy
wants to have his rabbi as his
guest is a pretty amazing thing,”
Bennett said. “I will be his guest
for as long as he’ll have me.”
While this was the first time
Bennett has used the Heimlich
technique, he urges everyone to
receive basic first aid/CPR train-
ing.
“Judaism teaches us that if you
save a human life, you save the
entire world, so to be put into that
situation is pretty awesome,” he
said.
After taking a few moments to
process the situation and breathe
a joint sigh of relief, Bennett and
Solomon enjoyed the rest of the
afternoon.
“He’s my special person for life,”
Solomon said. •

CPR training that includes Heimlich
maneuver is available throughout the year
from a variety of organizations such as the
American Red Cross and the American
Heart Association at locations across Metro
Detroit. Visit www.redcross.org or www.
cpr.heart.org or call your local fire or police
department for more information.

Daniel Kahneman

Amos Tversky

DANIEL KAHNEMAN (1934-).

b. Tel Aviv, Israel. Nobel Prize in Economics, 2002.
A psychologist who revolutionized economics.
A psychologist and behavioral economist, few people’s research has had as much
impact on our understanding of decision-making than Daniel Kahneman’s. Born in the
British Mandate of Palestine, Kahneman was raised in Nazi-occupied France, and then
returned with his family to Israel in 1948. He studied psychology at Hebrew University,
and then served in the IDF’s psychology department, going on to receive his PhD from
UC Berkeley. While lecturing on cognitive psychology at Harvard, Kahneman began
collaborating with psychologist Amos Tversky (see below). Together, they developed the
idea of prospect theory, which argues that given the option of two equal outcomes, people
will choose the one that involves the greatest perceived gain and the least perceived loss.
His insights into psychology and human behavior, documented expertly in his bestselling
book, “Thinking Fast and Slow,” have revolutionized how people think about economics.
Whereas the classical model of economics assumed that people make decisions based
on the most optimal outcome, Kahneman has shown how emotions and psychology can
override rational behavior. In 2002, Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize “for having
integrated insights from psychological research into economic science.”

AMOS TVERSKY (1937-1996).

b. Haifa, Israel. d. Stanford, California.
A war hero who transformed economics.
Amos Tversky was among the 20th century’s most influential cognitive psychologists.
His research has forever changed how people view decision-making and economics. If he
had not died six years before his close friend and colleague Daniel Kahneman received the
Nobel Prize in Economics, Tversky may very well have shared the award. As Kahneman
said when receiving the prize, “I feel it is a joint prize, we were twinned for more than a
decade.” Tversky was born and raised in Israel; he served in the IDF as a captain, earning
a distinction for bravery. He fought in three wars—the Sinai War in 1956, the Six-Day War
and the Yom Kippur War. Tversky and Kahneman both studied undergraduate psychology
at Hebrew University. Tversky’s research into how people make decisions revealed an idea
that is just now percolating through the field of economics: people often make economic
decisions not based on rational self-interest and logic, but based on emotion. In one
scenario that Tversky devised, people were asked whether, after paying $10 for a theater
ticket, if they lost the ticket on the way in, would they return to the window to buy another
ticket? Alternatively, what if, upon arriving at the theater to buy a ticket, they realize that
they have lost $10 from their wallet. Would they still buy a ticket? Tversky showed that
people generally refused to buy the second ticket after losing the first; but would buy the
initial ticket even after discovering that they lost $10. Even though the net outcomes were
the same, people saw the loss of the $10 and purchasing a ticket as unrelated—and thus
less emotionally painful than buying a second ticket after losing the first. Reason and logic,
Tversky revealed, are often sorely lacking in our decision-making.

Original Research by Walter L. Field Sponsored by Irwin S. Field Written by Jared Sichel

jn

September 27 • 2018

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